


Three Names

by girl_aflame



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:43:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_aflame/pseuds/girl_aflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But now, waiting in the sixteen-year-old corral, she catches a glimpse of him – pressed white shirt, extending a hand to let someone pass him –  and her mind starts repeating his name like it’s making up for lost time." Katniss Everdeen is the one with a crush during the first Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Names

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jamiesommers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamiesommers/gifts).



She runs their names over in her mind in the weeks before the reaping. If she thinks hard enough, maybe her mental strength will be enough to save them from being called.

Prim.

Gale.

Rory.

There’s one she’s tried to avoid. Sometimes she’ll throw a blanket over it – _hell, keep us all of the reaping, why don’t you?_ she asks some higher power that, clearly, is run by the Capitol, because it never listens. 

But now, waiting in the sixteen-year-old corral, she catches a glimpse of him – pressed white shirt, extending a hand to let someone pass him – and her mind starts repeating his name like it’s making up for lost time:

Peeta Mellark.

…

Her feelings for Peeta Mellark are inexplicable and embarrassing; last week, Prim made an offhand comment about the baker’s handsome youngest son, and Katniss ran back to the Seam like she was the twelve-year-old. For crying out loud, she doesn’t even know him. But her mind has catalogued all of his moves for the past eleven years.

Ever since the day he crawled into their yard, his face covered in bruises and leg dragging behind him. 

She didn’t scream for her mother. Instead, she ran outside and picked up the boy, struggling under his weight. “Kat, Kat?” toddler Prim called from the door, drawing their mother’s attention. Mrs. Everdeen’s hands flew to her cheeks and although the boy’s blond curls obscured her vision, Katniss could tell that her mother recognized the boy. Somehow.

But her mother quickly recovered and went to work immediately. She set the boy’s leg, wrapping it with heavy cloth she’d dipped in plaster.

Katniss never let go of the boy and he did the same, clenching her palm when the pain was too much.

“I’m Katniss,” she offered as the boy’s face puckered, shiny with sweat under the lantern light. The electricity had gone out the night before and still hadn’t returned. 

“Peeta,” he gasped.

“You’ll be okay, Peeta,” she said. “I promise.”

“It’s getting late, Katniss,” her mother said eventually as the wick burned low.

The boy’s blue eyes, pained and frightened, gazed up at her. It was the same look Prim had on her face when she couldn’t find their mother or their father had taken too long to return from the mines.

“Will you…” He swallowed. “Will you stay with me?”

“Of course,” she said, and even in the shadows, she could sense her mother softening. 

Peeta fell asleep a tiny smile on his face. 

The leg healed. The bruises faded. 

And she hadn’t spoken to him since. 

There was the coal mining explosion. Months of darkness punctuated by Hazelle Hawthorne bustling through their home with piping hot soup, the most she could pull away from her own family. Six months later, Katniss was out in the woods foraging on her own. Another month and three weeks later, Gale Hawthorne had joined her, muttering at every chance he could about how unfair it was that the merchants didn’t have to sneak under the fence like everyone else in the Seam. 

But she never forgot Peeta Mellark or the way he’d looked up at her that night, asking her to stay. Looking at her like she was his only hope. 

Over the subsequent years, his shoulders broadened and his jaw tightened. If her classroom was quiet, everyone at work on an exam, she could hear him laughing down the hallway. He was always smiling, it seemed.

And when their eyes met briefly, the smile was enough to last her for weeks.

But it’s pathetic, really. Chances are his mind has completely obliterated the memory of that night. She’s seen enough of her mother’s patients to know that the mind has a way of shutting down in the face of too much pain. 

If he hasn’t? Still doesn’t matter. She’s Seam through and through, as Gale never fails to mention on his rants about classism and tyranny. 

Effie Trinket takes to the stage, teetering on impossibly high heels. 

Her eyes find Peeta again, and without warning, her heart starts pounding.

Effie begins with the usual preamble, waving her bejeweled hands like there’s a bee buzzing around her. 

_If we both make it out of here without being reaped--_

Effie’s hand plunges into the glass bowl and it’s all Katniss can do to control her breathing.

_\--If we can survive this, I’ll—_

“—Primrose Everdeen!”

…

Three names.

Primrose.

Katniss, replacing Prim.

Finally, Peeta Mellark. No volunteer. 

Three nightmares.

As they shake hands (his hand strong and secure), Katniss’s shock turns to resolve.

One of them is making it out of the arena alive.

And if it’s not her, it’s going to be him.

…

When Gale comes into the Justice Hall to say goodbye, they hug for a long moment. Then he starts offering advice – or rather, lecturing – about what she should do in the arena and she nods, not really listening. She’s heard it all before. Internalized it from years of watching the Games. 

“…I know that Baker Boy throws an unexpected wrench into things, but you have to stay focused,” he says.

“What?”

“Geesh, Katniss, did you hear anything I said? I don’t like that look.”

“What look?” Panic? Sickness?

He grips her by the shoulders as footsteps approach the door. “You can’t be afraid to kill him, Katniss, no matter how you feel. If it’s a matter of you and him, you have to do what you have to do to come home. Okay? Promise me.”

They take him away but she’s still speechless. 

So Gale knows.

Asshole.

…

She’s always tried to rationalize the bursts of warmth that overtake her every time she’s made eye contact with the baker’s son the past eleven years. Find a one-word category for each glance. Concern. Relief. Happiness at the fact that he’s thriving now, not like that day when they were kids.

Across the table, Peeta says something about hot chocolate and she stays firmly, determinedly focused on the meal at hand.

The train rattles the plates.

“…What do you think, Katniss?”

Oh, no, he’s staring at her now, they all are. Their first opportunity to converse in years and--“Mmph?” she says through a mouthful of bread.

Effie clucks in disapproval. “No speaking until you’ve swallowed, Miss Everdeen. Manners!”

Haymitch, the man who’s supposed to teach her how to survive against twenty-three child enemies and one Capitol-engineered arena, snickers and follows it up with a burp.

“What do you think about the hot chocolate?” Peeta asks again, his smile steady. 

“It’s, uh, pretty warm,” she manages.

Haymitch laughs full-out this time, dropping his glass onto the table. “You are a piece of work, Katniss Everdeen. I think I like it.”

…

It turns out she has a real penchant for making the old man laugh. 

It’s not a good thing.

“I’m getting frostbite just from listening to you,” he says after three hours of interrogation. Well, interview preparation. (But really, interrogation.) 

“What the hell do you want from me?” she spits out. “I keep to myself. I hunt. I don’t have time for dresses and boys and all of this stupid Capitol shit.”

“Boys.” His eyes narrow. “Spill it, sweetheart. Who is he?”

“He? There’s no one!” Almost no one. 

“You wouldn’t have brought him up otherwise.” He leans in, sober for the first time in three hours and four minutes (she’s watched the clock on the wall for all of them). “The Hawthorne boy? Always seemed a little judgmental to me, but I admire his spunk.”

“Ugh, no. He’s like…my cousin.”

“How about what’s-his-face, Thom?”

“He’s like Gale but louder.”

“True,” Haymitch agrees. “McLaren, the blacksmith’s boy?”

“Merchant,” she says dismissively. Not that there’s anything wrong with all merchants, mind you. But out of her league? Absolutely. “His younger brother used to pick on Prim until I pulled an arrow on him.”

Days away from her ultimate demise, and this is the closest she’s ever been to gossip.

This is why she has no time for boys. Or friends. 

“The thing is, sweetheart, if you mention your boy back home, the Capitol will be eating out of your hand,” Haymitch says. “You need something to make them root for you. Volunteering makes you interesting, but now you have to make them love you.”

Good luck with that. 

“Or at least be intrigued by you.”

Fair enough. 

He jabs a stubby finger at her. “So if you’re willing to put up with Caesar’s crazed laugh on national television, it could turn into sponsors.”

“There is no boy back home,” she says, but her mentor is undeterred: “What about Adric?”

“No.”

“Ellis?”

“No.”

“Mellark?”

“No—what?”

“It’s not a flat-out no!” Haymitch crows. 

She starts protesting, but it’s no use. Her mentor is already nodding. “This is a fucking goldmine, Katniss Everdeen,” he says in a low voice, checking to make sure the door is still closed. “You confess your tragic love story, people will be weeping in their chairs. I was hoping to get you two past the bloodbath, but you might actually have a shot at winning this thing.”

“It’s not a tragic love story,” she says, because “love” is hardly part of it. Right? Infatuation at best. Useless infatuation at that. 

“It helps you and it helps Peeta.”

He’s got her there, and they both know it.

“You’re a girl in love,” he says, “and now Peeta is an object of desire. Sponsors will pay more attention to him, keep both of you alive so they can see how your little scenario plays out. Can you do the math with that fine District 12 education?”

She can. 

He stands up. “I’ll give Caesar the talking points. Don’t give anything away between now and tonight, you hear me? The power of surprise and all of that bullshit.”

“Okay,” she mutters, defeated. 

…

If she pukes onstage, does she have to go through with this?

But if Haymitch is right, this might be her only shot at winning over anyone in the Capitol. “Just one person can make a difference!” he said in imitation of Effie, except she knows that in her case, one person could well be all that she gets for a sponsor.

As she told Cinna, she’s not very good at making friends.

Lights. Hands clapping. So many hands, so many bizarre headdresses and unnatural human skin tones. 

So many…white teeth.

“Katniss Everdeen, the girl on FIRE!” Caesar yells above the roaring of the crowd, taking her by the hand. She tries not to cringe. “I have to say, Katniss. Ever since the reaping, you’ve proven to be one of the most fascinating tributes we’ve seen in years. Isn’t that right, folks?”

The crowd cheers its approval. She takes a shaky breath and smiles.

Down the seated row of tributes, the boy from District 2 narrows his eyes.

She navigates the Prim question without crying. She stands up and shows off her dress, and the crowd loves it. She keeps smiling, smiling, all the while dreading the question that she knows is next on Caesar’s index card. She says more words than she has before in her life in hopes of running out the clock. She’s almost there…

“If you don’t mind me being forward, Miss Everdeen, is there anyone whose heart you’ve set aflame back home in District 12?” He waggles his blue eyebrows. The crowd “oohs” in excitement. 

Caught.

“Um, no,” she hedges. Haymitch glowers at her from the front row. “Well, not exactly.”

“Not exactly! How coy! How mysterious! My, oh, my, Miss Everdeen, you are making us work for it tonight and we’re loving it, aren’t we?” 

As the crowd calls their assent, Haymitch’s glare says everything: _Give them what they want._

Like her life isn’t enough. Or her dignity.

“There is one person,” she says, and she can see audience members elbowing and shhing each other. They’re hanging onto every word. “But he doesn’t know.”

Haymitch’s eyebrows lift. Better, but still not all the way there.

Caesar whistles. “Now that is a pity, Ms. Everdeen. But certainly he’s watching tonight, is he not? Hoping you’ll come home?”

“Not exactly.” She swallows hard. “He…”

Caesar grins encouragingly.

“He came here with me.”

Caesar’s jaw drops. For a moment, there is absolute silence. Then the crowd explodes, gasping and cheering and weeping.

Thousands of miles away, she’s sure she hears Gale groan.

…

Her ears are still burning from the cheers as Peeta takes the stage, handsome and strong in his fiery suit. She barely hears the early banter until the crowd hushes as Caesar asks, “So, Peeta, certainly you’ve heard the shocking revelation from your fellow district tribute.”

Her fingers clench.

“Katniss Everdeen?” Peeta looks around as though he’s surprised, like he can’t quite believe it

“The one and only,” Caesar confirms.

Peeta considers for a moment, then breaks into a self-deprecating smile. “A girl like that? C’mon, Caesar, there’s no way she’d ever notice boring me. She must mean Haymitch.”

The audience roars with laughter. Caesar is cackling so hard he may choke. 

She’s plotting how to kill him at the Cornucopia. 

…

As soon as the elevator doors slide open, she shoves him. Hard. “I opened up and you mocked me!” she yelled. On national television, she wants to add, when I can’t even open up to my best friend. So much for sponsors, she wants to say. 

So much for him feeling the same way.

“Hey, hey!” Peeta grabs his shoulder, wincing. “I’m sorry! I was just surprised, okay?”

“He played it perfectly, sweetheart,” Haymitch said. “Just as aloof as you. They’re going nuts out there wondering how he really feels. Now, if you’ll put down your fists, some final words of wisdom.”

“I’m sorry,” Peeta says again, quietly this time, as Haymitch starts talking. But she doesn’t answer.

No matter how she feels about Peeta, she can’t leave Prim alone in District 12.

But she can’t be the one who kills Peeta. She would rather step off of her plate and end it in the first sixty seconds. 

Despite how peripherally he’s orbited her world for the past four years, she can’t imagine District 12 without that smile, wide and genuine. Without that little boy with the broken leg and the bruise on his cheek who grew up into the man next to her. And dammit, her throat closes up thinking about how she’d hoped, in some stupid small part of her, that she would have approached him after the reaping. Start trading with him instead of his father when Peeta took over the bakery. Make small talk (about what? Hell if she knows).

But they’ll never have that. 

So she nods as Haymitch offers strategy. But she knows none of it matters. 

A plan is forming.

…

“Where’s your boyfriend, Girl on Fire?” She doesn’t miss the way Cato’s eyes comb over her body, searching for a clue as to how she pulled off that eleven in training. 

Behind them is the wreckage of the bloodbath. She doesn’t look at how many bodies there are, how many packages are strewn about without being claimed. Her quiver of arrows is wrapped securely around her back and that’s all that matters.

Besides the fact that she saw Peeta run off into the woods. 

She’d dodged flying knives, punches to the face, and a spear on her dash to the cornucopia. She scooped up the quiver and bow to find the District 4 girl leering at her. Without a thought, she knocked the girl to the ground and someone else pounced. 

There was so much chaos that she couldn’t hear the screams.

Joining the Careers, as it turns out, is on par with making a trade in the Hob: have the right swagger and you’ll be accepted. All it took was loading her bow, aiming it at the District 4 male tribute, and whistling it past his ear. “I want in on an alliance,” she called, bow already reloaded. “If not, this one is going through your eye.”

He’d held his hands up reluctantly. “It’s up to Cato, not me.”

If she doesn’t breathe too deeply, she can’t smell the blood. 

“He blew me off,” she says now, keeping her voice as steely as possible. “Said we should just be friends.”

Cato barks out a laugh. “So this is your idea of payback?”

“Something like that.”

All of the Careers laugh. Glimmer claps her on the shoulder. She still has her manicure from interview night intact, but there’s blood on her fingertips. 

“We’ll let you do the honors, okay?” she says.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Katniss says dryly.

She hears a soft whirring sound next to her ear. The cameras, always watching. Zooming in now to figure out what happened between Katniss and Peeta since interview night, wondering why the skinny girl from District 12 chose to enter the Career pack (and really, how had she scored that eleven?).

As soon as the Careers turn away, she winks at the camera.

…

“What does a guy have to do to get a chunk of meat in this place?” Cato calls to the sky, eliciting a round of laughs and jeers. 

He looks at Katniss. She gives him a sarcastic thumbs-up. It took all of her self-control not to shoot him in the night. But she can’t disturb the Career pack equilibrium this early in the Games. She needs to figure out where Peeta is first and then lead them as far away from him as possible. 

Where is Peeta?

The woods stretch out endlessly before them. It would be a welcome sight at home. Here, it means the deeper they go, the better the odds that something awful waits for them. 

For now, there isn’t a need to walk much further. They have water, dried fruit, and more weapons than they can carry. If she survives this, she’ll forever associate the sound of metal on metal with the Careers dragging their supply on the hunt. 

Cato and Clove went scouting last night, dragging Katniss along with them. She’d kept her bow loaded the entire journey and didn’t flinch when they happened upon the District 8 girl trying to warm her hands by a fire. (Stupid, stupid girl.) She said nothing when Cato and Clove high-fived over the girl’s barely breathing body. And when the two traipsed away, the girl clung to Katniss’s hand and they waited there together for the cannon to go off.

“Got her,” she’d said when she rejoined the pair. “My kill now, not yours.”

Clove laughed. Cato stared her down, but she’d stared him down right back. 

The Careers are remarkably good at deflecting any and all fear they may have. “Maybe Loverboy knows where the good stuff is,” Marvel says, poking his spear toward Katniss. 

“Doubt it,” she says. “Unless there are baked goods growing in the forest, he’ll never find anything on his own.”

“Ouch!” Cato says. “Girl on fire with the burn.”

“Damn, girl, I almost kind of like you,” says Glimmer, raising her hand for a high-five. Katniss accepts it, wincing internally. 

But Marvel brings up a good point: how is Peeta staying alive? He grew up in a bakery, never having to hunt for food the way she did. 

Does he have sponsors? Allies?

“Holy shit!” Cato’s voice changes from cocky to terrified in an instant. “Run!”

She looks up as the first fireball hits the earth next to her. 

…

Lesson learned: There is no loyalty among Careers. Each of them scatters, screaming and yanking their hoods over their heads as the fire rains fast and furious upon them. 

She runs and runs and falls headlong into the river.

The water is bitter cold and brutal, spinning her until she doesn’t know up from down, surface from bottom. Her elbows and knees strike the rocks. She feels the air against her lips, gasps, and is sucked back down. 

When she slams against a boulder and the spinning stops, her first thought is that it’s all over. Enough rocks have bashed in her brains. And when something stone-colored drops in front of her, well, it must be the hovercraft claw coming to carry her away.

Until it grabs her arm and she screams. 

“Looking to float out of the arena?”

“Peeta!” she cries out. “What are you doing here?”

“Staying alive,” he says into her shoulder. “Good to see you too, sweetheart.”

…

She’s fine, really, but Peeta insists on lifting her onto his back and carrying her into a nearby cave, walking like she’s no heavier than a sack of flour. One inside, she struggles to keep from collapsing. Weak tributes don’t get sponsors. Resourceful ones do. 

She slumps against the stone wall as she surveys Peeta’s set-up. A small bundle of sticks for a fire. An orange backpack and a sleeping bag. His boots sitting neatly next to the entrance. “Cozy, isn’t it?” he says with a quirk of his eyebrow.

Miraculously, her bow and most of the arrows survived the tumble through the river. The bow’s warped now but she can work on that tomorrow—

“I’m so glad to see you again,” Peeta says, slipping his camouflage-painted arms around her as she’s about to slide down the wall of the cave. “I watched the sky every night to make sure you were okay.”

“Me, too,” she breathes as he leans closer.

His nose bumps hers and she gulps. He laughs a little, arms tightening around her jacket. She’s sopping wet but he doesn’t pull away.

He’s going to kiss her. Right here.

His lips are barely a breath away when she starts shivering uncontrollably. 

“We need to warm you up.” He pulls back, sliding his hands up and down her arms in a meager attempt to generate friction. 

“Uh, yeah, sure,” she stammers. 

Dammit.

…

She coaxes a fire to life as Peeta digs through his pack for food. She peels off her jacket and shakes the water out of her braid. 

“I’ve got nuts, some dried beef jerky…” His voice trails off.

She looks up to catch him staring at her. 

Quickly she averts her eyes, knowing that her undershirt is clinging way too tightly to her ribs and bony shoulders. It’s wet, too, but there’s only so much of a show that she’s willing to give the Capitol. 

“Whatever you have is fine,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. 

His eyes sweep over her again. Caressing her. 

She doesn’t know what’s burning hotter, the fire or her cheeks. 

“How was it keeping company with the Careers?” Peeta asks as he pulls off her boots. She’s perfectly capable of doing it herself, but she’s suddenly so overwhelmed with exhaustion that she doesn’t resist. 

“About what you’d expect. Intellectually stimulating. Lots of arm wrestling.”

He cradles her heel in his palm as he tugs off the boot, and then returns the other hand to the ball of her foot. He presses down and she gasps in relief. He is actually _rubbing her foot._ The smoke inhalation must be messing with her brain. No way this is real.

She leans back and closes her eyes.

“I had an ally,” Peeta says quietly. “The little girl from District 11?”

She nods. “The one who was climbing the ropes in training? She reminds me of Prim.”

“She…” Peeta clears his throat and she realizes that he’s about to cry.

“It’s okay,” she says, tugging open the sleeping bag so that they both can fit. “I’m here now, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

He nods, unconvinced, and she thinks of that little boy lying on the kitchen table, clenching her hand as her mother straightened out his twisted leg. “I always have been,” she says quietly, reaching up a hand to smooth his curls. 

He smiles at her, brilliant blue eyes watery. 

She doesn’t know what happened to his ally, doesn’t want to hear the awful details. So she pulls him down by the neck and kisses him.

He tenses, surprised, and then meets her halfway. 

His kisses are impossibly slow and sweeping, luxurious, and she expects him to pull away at any moment but instead he lowers her chest so that it’s flush with hers, and the weight is heavy but wonderful, all of his contours fitting with hers. 

Eventually he pulls away but her eyes are still closed. “Falling asleep on me?” he teases. “That good, huh?”

She swats at him and misses horribly. He laughs, sliding into the sleeping bag next to her, and the warmth is immediate and encompassing. 

So are his arms.

…

She learns that Peeta Mellark is funny.

She learns that his lips are soft but firm.

And as the rain falls and they lay together, fingers and legs entwined, watching the cascade through the cave opening, maybe, just maybe, he’s learned to feel the same way as her.

…

But for the Capitol, there can’t be a love story without a little bloodshed.

They wake up on the fourth day in the cave and find the river evaporated, the mockingjays silent, and the sun blazing hot. 

“We could wait it out in here. At least there’s shade,” Peeta says uncertainly.

She shakes her head. “Then they’ll find a way to drive Cato here. Let’s just end this thing.”

Slowly, methodically, they pack up the supplies they might never need again. Hand in hand, they walk through the forest, not worried about making a sound because there’s only one person left to hear them. 

Once they have their first glimpse of the cornucopia in the afternoon sun, Cato comes running.

So do the mutts.

… 

They cling to each other, bleeding, waiting for Cato’s cannon to fire and the night of hell to end. She checks the tourniquet on Peeta’s leg and hopes it can hold out long enough for the hovercraft. 

_Boom._

They look at each other but don’t let go. Who knows what fresh horror might await them?

But the forest remains still. The morning sky shines down on them, inappropriately bright and hopeful.

Hope.

She wonders what that feels like.

When they’re finally confident that nothing will happen (not yet, at least), they slide down the cornucopia and she loops her arms underneath his, keeping him upright. 

He licks his cracked lips. “Maybe we need to…move away from the body?”

They stumble together to the lake. She’s tempted to put her face in the water and take a deep sip, but she can’t trust the water. Not when they’re this close to going back to District 12.

Minutes pass. She imagines the Capitol audiences grumbling impatiently. Crying out for action. 

Unless the audience knows something that they don’t. 

“What are they waiting for?” Peeta says, squinting against the sunlight.

“You know what they want.” Her voice has no inflection. After fighting off mutts, the sound of Cato’s screams, and the bitter cold, she can’t feel anything anymore. 

His lips part. “Katniss…”

She’s already dropped the bow. It clunks at her feet. “Go ahead, Peeta. We both know that you’re the one who should make it out of here.”

He shakes his head and throws his knife into the lake. Then he bends down and starts untying the tourniquet. “You have your sister. Your mother. They need you, Katniss.”

When she flies at him, he tries to fend her off with one hand, but they’re both too exhausted to put up a real struggle. She presses the cloth against his wound, looking up at him. Marveling at the way the light brings out the deepest flecks of blue in his eyes, even now, at the end of things.

“We can’t let this go on for long,” he says weakly. “The Gamemakers…”

_…will have something horribly fucked-up in mind if we do._

She nods and steps back. One step, then another – and stumbles into a bush. Peeta cracks a smile and she can’t help it – she does too.

As she reaches back to steady herself, her hands close around something small and smooth. 

“Planning to stone me to death with fruit, Everdeen?” Peeta says as she plucks the tiny black berries off of the bush with shaking fingers. “That’s not very merciful of you, but I suppose I’ll have to accept it.”

One would be enough, but she takes a handful just in case. She has to be certain that the cameras see. Her body is trembling so badly that a few escape her palm and roll into the grass. 

Peeta’s tiny smile fades as she rushes back to him. “What are these?” he says quietly. “A final meal?”

“Nightlock,” she says. “One bite and you’re a goner.”

He doesn’t need to ask. Instead, he opens his hand and she rolls in half of the pile, letting her fingers linger for longer than she should. 

“They have to have a victor,” he says, watching her eyes. Pleading with her. 

She stands up on her toes and kisses him one last time. The last thing she’ll taste before the nightlock touches her tongue.

“Not this time,” she says.

They lace their free hands together, standing back to back. “One,” Peeta says, voice clear.

“Two,” she says, matching him.

“Three.”

No hesitation. Just the swift raising of the hand with the berries as Peeta’s hand clenches the other one. 

She promised Peeta Mellark when they were five years old that she’d stay with him.

Katniss Everdeen keeps her promises. 

“STOP!” shouts Claudius Templesmith. 

…

So this is what victory is like: Interviews. Personal congratulations from the absolutely lethal-looking President Snow. (Ugh. She’d showered long and hard after that handshake.) More interviews, a flurry of excited stylists, and now, finally, the train.

Throughout it all, her hand never leaves Peeta’s.

She sits with Peeta in the front compartment so that they’ll be the first people on the train to see District 12. When she proposed the idea, he’d smiled at her kindly, but she could tell that he was thinking about something else.

It’s been that way since their final interview with Caesar – “An intimate portrait of two victors,” as the man had called it. The same smile, the same hugs, but something has shifted in his eyes. 

Is he thinking of home? Wondering how they’ll adjust to their new lives?

Haymitch grabs a tumbler from the counter, already on his third drink of the morning. “Great job, you two,” he says. “Better romance than any Capitol soap opera. Keep it up until we get back to District 12, all right?”

As he retreats, she turns to Peeta. “What does he mean?”

When Peeta doesn’t respond right away, she slides her hand from his. Her entire body feels cold.

This is what’s changed. 

He doesn’t reach out to reclaim her hand. Doesn’t even look her in the eye. “Katniss, there’s been a lot going on since we got out of the Games, and I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to tell you sooner—”

“Get to the point.”

He looks up and then drops his gaze immediately, but not before she sees the guilt in his eyes. 

She saved his life. In exchange, he’s dumping her.

If you can dump someone that you were never really with. 

“So it was an act,” she says flatly. “Everything you said in the Games.”

“What? No, Katniss, that’s not what I’m trying to say.”

She stands up, back rigid. “Well, spit it out or this conversation is over. One.”

“It’s just that…”

“Two.”

“Haymitch and I have been talking a lot…”

“Three.”

“Snow is angry,” Peeta rushes out. “Really, really angry. He thinks the berries were an act of rebellion, not an act of love.”

All of the fight rushes out of her, and fear floods instead. She falls back onto the couch. “Which means—”

“That we’re screwed, yes,” Peeta says. “Haymitch says that if we don’t act completely, wildly in love, he’ll come after us. The districts are in an uproar, and Snow wants a love story to placate them.”

That word again. _Act._

“But it _was_ rebellion.” The fear has left his eyes, replaced by a sharp glint. 

Her head pounds. She’s done. She won the Games. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t this the part where everything becomes easier? “I don’t follow.”

“Don’t you see, Katniss?” He reaches out and grabs both of her hands in his, encompassing them with warmth. “You took out those berries and I realized that everything we’ve been through – you, me, the districts – it isn’t fair. We don’t deserve to live this way. I want a future where I’m not afraid for my life, for the lives of my children. I want…” He bites his lip, then smiles at her hesitantly. “I want a future with you without being afraid that a laboratory-created mutt is going to come around the corner and eat us alive.”

All right, that’s an improvement over “act.”

“Nobody can know about this,” Peeta says, running his thumb up and down the side of her hands. “Haymitch says we’re sworn to secrecy so we can protect our families.”

Haymitch.

Katniss.

Peeta.

Three people against the Capitol. It’s almost enough to make her laugh. How are three victors from District 12 supposed to do anything?

“So what do we do now?” she says. 

Without warning, he sweeps her up into his arms and claims her lips with his. One hand pulls her flush against him, the other wraps into her hair, and his tongue strokes hers urgently. She clings to him, unable to breathe, unable to do anything but let out everything she’s never said. 

“We love each other,” he says into her ear, voice deep and fierce. “And we turn this country upside down.”


End file.
